The Human-Fleet of Fog unification conflict
by Jerricom
Summary: Three of the Fleet of Fog's divisions have gathered at Yokosuka to partake in a human outreach programme, years after the events set in motion by the Iona Mental model. They are volunteers; some are enthusiastic, some have motives, some are sceptical. But those who are more than sceptical will not take this radical plan lightly. A conflict is brewing, a civil war is on the horizon.
1. Prologue

Author's none.

Yes, I'm a little unfocused at the moment. I thought I'd focus on SOMA for a while, but then World of Warships introduce "Arpeggio of Blue Steel" ships to the game, I got curious, and suddenly I sit with a 2k word long mind map of a story in front of me and _have_ to write it _ I can't help it! This is what I'm doing for now. I have another SOMA story on the way as well, and I've written a little EVA, but this is what I'm doing for now. Enjoy!

End of author's note.

 **The Fleet of Fog-Human unification conflict; prologue.**

The Pacific Ocean water is calm today. There's a rain squall in the far distance, just a speck on her sensors, not even the humans on-board are worried about it. They are all lined up on deck, standing along the railing or next to their gun mounts if they are open enough that you can look out over the side; she herself stands perched upon the highest point on her ship, at the very top of the pagoda mast, the wind brushing the locks of her dark purple hair gently over her face.

She is Nagato, lead battleship of the class with the same name; 32 700 metric tonnes and with a primary armament consisting of eight sixteen-inch guns during her time in World War II, she is now a flagship in the Fleet of Fog. Years have passed since the events surrounding the Iona Mental Model took place, and things have changed. Now, a truce of sorts have been declared with the humans, and Nagato's division, and the other two divisions gathered here today, are part of an outreach programme that has placed human crews on-board, just like with I-401.

She looks around herself. To the south-west is a great, white-painted warship with a plain and boxy superstructure, short but wide compared to Nagato; a hazel-haired woman stands on the top of her bridge structure, she is Warspite. To the south-east sails another battleship of roughly the same broad design but with triple-mounted turrets instead of Warspite and Nagato's double. On top of her second gun turret stands Arizona, tall and blonde with her hair tied up in a ponytail that reaches her waist. The three warships are arranged in a circle with their starboard side towards the centre, where all their crews are stood. Outside their circle sail the remaining ships of their respective divisions; to Warspite's port there's a cruiser and two destroyers, two cruisers and two destroyers for Arizona, and three destroyers and a cruiser for Nagato, making up a complete circle around the three battleships.

They are at Guadalcanal. Nothing of the island can be seen above water any more but they are not here for the island itself; they are here to visit Sealark Channel, or as it is more commonly known: Iron bottom sound. During the second world war four major naval battles were fought in this sound, resulting in the deaths of approximately 5 700 sailors and the sinking of almost fifty ships; this is sacred ground for the sailors, and Arizona had thought it only fitting that they visited this place. Since so many warships were sunk here as well, the Mental Models present also have some reason to show reverence, even though those ships sunk here were primitive by comparison.

After the decided two minutes have passed, Nagato nods solemnly to herself and looks out beyond the distant Savo Island; a dark purple halo forms above her head and the ship's humming rises somewhat as the ship breaks out of its gentle starboard turn and heads out of the sound, the rest of the ships following suit. Nothing is said before all ships have cleared the island and entered open sea again, at which point a low murmur rises throughout the deck as crewmen return to their stations as directed by their superiors.

"It is a curious thing with these humans, their obsession with this… This sense of tradition," she thinks out loud, just as the sole cruiser of her division pulls up next to her, an Aoba-class heavy cruiser; Kinugasa has climbed all the way up her radio mast and is balancing on top of the enormous radio dish. The black-haired girl turns her head down to Nagato, "I can understand why they like it. Every now and then on predetermined dates you go to a place and you remember the fallen, or you perform a task in a special manner because it has been done that way since times immemorial, or you hold a small celebration when it has been exactly 365 days since you were created… Not that a Mental Model would ever forget something, but I can understand the sense of comfort it gives the humans. A very special way of remembering and _honouring_ the past."

Nagato crosses her arms, staring out over the water as the wind buffets her face, thinking. Without turning to look back up at Kinugasa -and considering the size difference between the two ships she wouldn't have to look up by much- she replies, "Would not such behaviour hamper efficiency? If one always holds on to these traditions, nothing will ever change."

Kinugasa flashes a smile and shakes her head, sending her shoulder-length black hair every which way, "Traditions are not rules; they are more like guidelines, I've found. Besides, most of the human are at least sensible enough to discard their old traditions when ground-breaking new methods and beliefs are invented." Nagato's brows furrow and now she glances over to Kinugasa, "I thought you just said that tradition is to honour one's past? Is it not a little hypocritical to call the past important and worthy of worship, only to throw it away the moment a more efficient solution is found?"

"Come now, sister," Kinugasa says with a dismissive wave of her gold-and-black gloved hand, "There is no sense in remembering a technique's inventor if that technique isn't the best."

"But if it were not for that inventor then the present techniques would never have been invented, surely?" Nagato retorts. Kinugasa shakes her head, again, "True, but if we pay respect to every single step taken on the way to where we are, we would not have time for anything else, and _that_ would hamper efficiency."

Before Nagato can respond, however, she can hear someone call to her, down in the bridge; she can hear everything being said on the ship, "Mental Model Nagato?" She perks an eyebrow and suddenly stands on the bridge, amidst the human command staff. Some are a little startled but at least the captain has gotten used to her ability to seemingly teleport around the ship, even though she is technically everywhere on the ship at all times; she _is_ the ship. "Yes, captain, what is it?"

The grizzled old man straightens his back and salutes briefly before going on, "We have received communications from the Arizona, ma'am. They are advising us the destroyers William D. Porter and Hoel will be engaging in a combat exercise." Her nostrils flare a little at the captain's use of the terminology ' _the_ Arizona'. _They're still determined to view us as machines_ , she thinks. Nagato nods nonetheless, however, and glances out of the ship, over the water to where the little Fletcher-class destroyers are separating slightly from the fleet and launching out target buoys. The two vessels each fire one volley of five shots each, Hoel hitting four targets and William D. Porter two. The two ships were sailing roughly next to one another, shooting in different directions, and now they begin a series of manoeuvres designed to dodge incoming shellfire. The Hoel slows down and the William D. Porter increases speed to cut ahead of her sister ship, but just before they begin turning Nagato spots something small and black being dropped from the Porter's stern: they fall into the water behind her, right in the Hoel's path; the Hoel will cut to the side to fall in behind Porter and cross over her wake as a part of the manoeuvre.

A call goes up over the communications link all Mental Models share from the Arizona and Hoel abruptly halts the turn and swings the other way; there's then a bright flash of azure beneath the water and a great plume of steam shoots into the air with a dull thud and a booming noise, like a thunderclap; the hot water and steam rise into the air in a geyser a hundred metres tall in the wake of the massive explosion. Hoel is rocked a little but appears undamaged, and immediately Nagato transfers into the Mental Space, the blue-tinted room lined with pillars where you go to communicate with other Mental Models in private: both the Fletcher-class destroyers are there already, Porter cowering before the Arizona while Hoel stands to the side, rubbing her left arm that seems to ache.

"What did you do, Willy Dee?" Arizona growls at the tiny, pink pigtail-haired girl that is William D. Porter, affectionately nicknamed Willy Dee, "It was a simple firing exercise!" There's a mix of irritation and plain, dumb-struck exasperation in Arizona's tone, and Willy Dee seems to shrink just a smidgeon more under her commander; hurriedly she stumbles out an explanation, "I-I thought t-that when you meant combat exercise y-you meant a f-full combat scenario, a-and told the crew to engage a-any and all targets… I-I might not have been e-entirely clear with the crew a-about the plan…"

"And they dropped an antimatter depth charge right down Hoel's throat, did they?" asks a sneering voice to Nagato's right, followed by a quiet snickering; it's Huntington, one of Arizona's Fargo-class cruisers. Dressed in a beige-brown leather jacket and pants she walks over to Arizona, hand at her hip, and pats her commander on the shoulder, "Cut 'er some slack, will ya'? No harm done."

Arizona straightens her back, indignantly brushing her somewhat messed-up blonde hair back over her shoulders and turning to Huntington, "Only thanks to _your_ quick warning." She glances back to Willy Dee, who's now hiding from her behind a frowning Hoel. "Just try to be careful, Willy. Pay more attention to your humans." She shakes her head with a sigh and turns around, and then is gone; back to the Model Space, or 'reality' as the humans like to call it. She's very quickly replaced by a slightly shorter woman dressed in a blue-and-white maid uniform, her cyan hair tied into a short horsetail. She strikes the heel of her shoe gently against the floor to announce her presence, straightens up and clasps her hands behind her back, "I assume everything's alright, ladies?"

Huntington spins on her heel and a wide grin spreads across her face, "Ohh, Belfast! So glad ya' could join. Yeah, everythin's fine, a lil' misshap is all." She puts her right hand to her hip, leaning on her right leg a little as she regards Belfast, who curtly replies, "Good to hear, Warspite was worried. From our perspective it looked like Hoel was hit square on." Belfast turns her head just enough to throw a censorious glance in Willy Dee's direction, who's still cowering red-cheeked behind her bright purple-haired sister, "That would've torn Hoel a new one alright."

"Awh come on, knock it off," Huntington says with a dismissive wave of her hand, "Pull the stick out of your ass, will ya'?" Belfast perks an eyebrow, her head tilts slightly to the side, "And then what? Stick it up William D. Porter's arse instead? At least that way she might learn how to behave like the warship she is." Huntington raises an accusing finger towards Belfast and opens her mouth to argue, but the cyan-haired woman holds her palm up defensively and cuts Huntington off, "Say what you will about me, but at least I've never bombed my own sister ship. Let's move on," and then she is gone. Nagato shakes her head, deeming she's heard quite enough, and leaves the Mental Space as well.

For the humans, this conversation would have passed altogether within the fraction of a second, they would never have noticed her absence, and are still staring out in alarm at the plume of vaporised water falling down over the Hoel's deck in the wake of the depth charge's detonation, soaking her poor crew. "There's no cause for worry, it was merely an accident," Nagato calmly states to the bridge crew; they are all aware of her ability to access the Mental Space, so they do not question her knowledge of this and just nod, returning to their duties. She turns to the captain, "I assume we are to proceed back to the Mariana Islands for combat exercises now, captain?"

"Correct," the old man says with a nod, "Should be calm sailing." Nagato nods back, and then returns to standing on top of the bridge of the ship, looking out over the waves. Kinugasa is sailing ahead of her with Ayanami and Shikinami on either flank, Makinami having taken up position behind Nagato. To her right sails Warspite with Belfast behind her and Zulu and Mohawk taking up the front and rear of their formation, and to Nagato's left Arizona is flanked on either side by Huntington and Fargo, with Hoel and Willy Dee sailing along a little bit off, continuing their firing exercise; volleying in perfect unison on targets and making dummy torpedo attacks on one another, no accidents this time.

Then she feels a tinge at the back of her head, and she's back in the Mental Space again. Warspite is sitting behind the small table that is the room's only decoration apart from a set of chairs; one elbow rests on the table, she's leaning her forehead against the knuckles of her right hand and looks up at Nagato as she appears, "It's always got to be the little ones, doesn't it?" A small smirk tugs at her lips as she says this, only half humorous. Nagato calmly walks up to the table and sits down, replying as she does, "The destroyers can be chaotic, yes." Warspite chuckles softly at this and shakes her head, still keeping it resting against her right hand, "Yes, you of any of us should know. I'm surprised yours haven't come over to Willy to gloat and sneer."

"Ayanami talked them out of it, I imagine," Nagato says thoughtfully, and then looks up at the blonde Mental Model with sudden curiosity, "Why did you call me here, Warspite?"

"Ohhh, it's my own two," she responds with an air of resignation, throwing her hands calmly into the air for emphasis. "They were always the dubious ones when it came to this enterprise, and when they caught air of the fact that Willy's _humans_ almost blew Hoel to smithereens, regardless of a failure of command on Willy's part, it put them on edge let's just say."

Nagato's eyebrows furrow almost unnoticeably, "Do you believe they will resign from the programme?" Warspite in turn shakes her head, "No, I doubt it. It shouldn't be too hard convincing them of seeing it as a challenge to make the humans into a functional crew, and they can't resist a challenge."

"I hope you are successful, Warspite," Nagato says with a nod, "Perhaps they can lead by example." This just provokes another chuckle from Warspite, however, who straightens out and shakes her head, "I wouldn't bet on it, mate. But we can hope at least." She cracks a small smirk and rises from the simple chair, "I'll try to not cock this up. I know this means a lot to you and Kinugasa."Nagato smiles back at Warspite with a small yet grateful smile, "Thank you, my friend. Your heart is greater than the rest of us combined."

"If I had a heart…" Warspite retorts with a playful wink and a smile, and then she's gone. Nagato chooses to remain for a moment, staring out into the white nothingness beyond the blueish pillars that line the room. A frown grows on her face, ' _If I had a heart'… Don't we?_

 **End of prologue chapter.**


	2. 1) An unexpected visitor

Author's note.

So, I may or may not have forgotten to mention before, but this story does have a certain crossover element with World of Warships, so be mentally prepared for that. It's nothing major, I mean WoWs doesn't even have a plot, I'm sure you'll spot the carry-over ideas from Warships when they appear.

End of author's note.

 **The Fleet of Fog-Human unification conflict, chapter 1:**

 **An unexpected visitor.**

Shells rain down around Ayanami, exploding with angry pulses of red in the water beneath her with such regularity that it seems as though the sea has turned to blood beneath her keel; the little Fubuki-class destroyer has become so thoroughly soaked you might mistake her for a submarine. Her own artillery replies, spewing gouts of blue energy out through the casquade around her, and she's rewarded by the shimmer of a Klein field in the far distance: three hits, and thus far she herself remains undamaged. _I have you now, Belfast..._ "Shikinami! Makinami! Range: seven thousand! I'll pull a 180 and cut in front of you to distract Bellie, and you two blast her back to Brittain with torpedoes! Got it?!"

Two gleeful acknowledgements rise from the ocean behind her; another Fubuki-class destroyer, the Shikinami, is sailing a few hundred metres behind Ayanami and the _Yūgumo_ -class destroyer Makinami an additional few hundred metres behind _her_. Ayanami ceases fire and goes into a hard turn to port, her stern kicking up a great spray of water and fume as she swings the little destroyer around; each weapon at her disposal opens fire as the three dark blue halos around her expands and rises into the air, completely cloaking the Ayanami and her immediate surroundings in blasts of energy and projectiles glowing hot blue.

On the Shikinami and Makinami revolver magazines are lifted up from the bowels of the two other destroyers and the tops of their torpedo launchers open up; the launchers are loaded with torpedoes shaped a litle like arrows, being wider at the front and rear. Just as Ayanami passes them by, blazing away with great vengeance and furious anger they launch their payloads; they pass the Ayanami's stern by by mere metres, silently approaching their pray in the far distance. The Belfast with its twelve six-inch let loose one more volleys towards the Ayanami and then pull into a hard turn to port herself, her secondary artillery along the sides turning to fire into the water; the turrets partially disassemble and the barrels fuse together in mid-air, lighting up and projecting beams of bright scarlet energy down into the water, boiling it and detonating some of the torpedoes and the rest of them she dodges.

"Nice move, sneaky bastard," Makinami mumbles to herself, grinning from ear to ear. "Damn her and her vigilance!" Shikinami screams at the top of her lungs as their cunning plan is foiled, impotently waving her fist in Belfast's general direction "Numerical advantage, my ass! She's as destroyer-proof as you can make a cruiser!" Her point is emphasized further by Ayanami crying out in surprise as an entire salvo of shells from Belfast suddenly slams into the poor destroyer's Klein field, shredding it and out of the cloudy sky a barrage of missiles soar down towards the destroyer and the pale blue-haired girl standing on top of the no.1 gun turret; when the brilliant flashes of red have ceased she's sitting dead in the water, having slowly ground to a halt, "That's me out of the game," she shouts to Shikinami and Makinami, shaking her head to get some of the water out of her hair, "I don't think this is working, girls."

"Screw that!" Shikinami shouts back, and lets rip another volley of her own five-inch guns out at Belfast, "We can't let Bellie think she's beaten us! You're just sour that she knocked you out!"

"You're not doing much better are you?!" Ayanami screams, leaning out over the edge of the gun turret she's standing on as if trying to get within arm's reach of her sister ship, "Regular high-explosive torpedoes at this range against a cruiser, are you out of your freaking mind?!"

"You're stupid!" Shikinami shouts back at the top of her lungs, but is swiftly cut off from saying anything more as shells start raining down around her instead, and she turns to Makinami behind her, "Screw this! Let's go get her, sis!" Shikinami pulls a 90 degree turn, followed by Makinami, ploughing through the water as they charge the Belfast. Shikinami lets rip her forward gun turret, more out of spite than anything else as two five-inch shells every few seconds isn't going to do much against Belfast's Klein field. Then Shikinami suddenly turns around to Makinami again, "Swing around! We'll separate and fire our torpedoes in a pincer, she'll be unable to dodge them all! Activate your engine boost so we can cover the greatest possible area before Bellie can react!"

"Good plan, let's go!" Makinami replies, still wearing that face-splitting grin, and the two destroyers spread out; the revolver magazines rise up again and reloads the torpedo tubes as the markings covering the both destroyers grow more intense in their glow; the destroyers accelerate to such high speeds that their bows rise from the water ever so slightly, both outrunning the splashes from Belfast's shells that rain down around them. As soon as their launchers are replenished they let their fish loose in wide spreads, filling the ocean with speeding torpedoes. In that exact moment though a warning indicator comes to life up to Shikinami's right, and she only has time to squeal with shock before a pair of missiles break the waves only a hundred metres from her flank, opening up mid-air to become a veritable swarm of small, rocket-propelled grenades. Shikinami's point-defence systems come to life and mount a very short and desperate defence before she's riddled with explosions from fore to aft, a warning message telling her that under normal circumstances she'd been struck so violently there wouldn't have been enough left of her to make the wreck salvage-worthy.

Her embarrassment and indignation doesn't have to last for very long, however, as she can see in the distance how great plumes of water shoot up around Belfast and she too grinds to a halt. Makinami cheers and hops up and down on the roof of her bridge, making the crew inside it glance up worriedly. "We got her, girls! Scratch one cruiser! Yeah!"

"Chew on that one!" Shikinami joins in, shouting as loud as she can out over the water in vain hope that Belfast will hear; she could just gloat over the comms channel as well, but Belfast can easily block her out of it. Shikinami can just imagine Belfast straightening out her silly uniform with indignation and pretending to not care in front of her captain. In the glory of the moment even Ayanami at the back is cheering, clapping her hands together with glee and throwing punches towards the beaten cruiser in the far distance.

 _A'right, let's hear how Nagato and Kinugasa are doing..._ Makinami thinks, and opens up a comm link to the Nagato. "Ma'am, we've beaten Belfast around the head with only very minor and inconsequential losses," she begins, to the outrage of Ayanami and Shikinami and her own great amusement, "How's it going, boss?"

"It is going well; the decision to lure Belfast away and leave Warspite with only destroyer escort appears to have been a correct tactic. Well done neutralizing her as well. I imagine you will not make it back in time to see the closing stages of the fight, over."

"Whatever you say, boss," Makinami responds, and turns to call out to Shikinami and Ayanami, "Seems like we've got this one, girls! In spite of you two dragging me down, we've saved the day!"Various enraged retorts are shouted back at her from her two sisters, but all she does is laugh.

– –

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With the first round of the combat exercises finished, the three divisions gather to review the data. There's an air of cheer over the little fleet; Nagato's division had beaten Warspite's, but only just, and while the latter along with Arizona sit down to discuss tactical improvements Nagato calls over her three destroyers.

"Look, you three..." she begins, sitting on her knees on top of her no.1 gun turret so that if Shikinami, Ayanami and Makinami each stand on top of their respective bridge structures they are on roughly the same level, "You all did well today, really, but... Don't you think you could have achieved the same results without taking those losses?"

"Belfast is a pushover!" Shikinami retorts confidently, "She was just lucky! You've said yourself that naval combat is based in part on luck." At this Ayanami's head snaps up and she glares over at Shikinami, snapping, "Oh, can it! You're just salty that you managed to get torpedoed by a freaking cruiser!"

"Shut up! Says the first one to go down!" Shikinami snaps back, pointing an accusing finger over the water at Ayanami. At this point however Nagato raises her hands and her voice enough to carry it clearly across the several hundred metres separating them, "Girls, please! I'm not accusing any one of you, you three all rushed off together, right?"

This subdues the two arguing destroyers, and only tentatively does Makinami speak up after a moment's silence, "But you told us to take out Belfast, and left that part of the plan's execution to us." The two others nod furiously, and Nagato's expression softens; she even breaks into a little smile, "Yes, but you know that Belfast has the Vigilance-type tactical code augmentation installed, an expected torpedo attack like the first one you tried would never have worked."

"What were we supposed to do then? The fact that we hit her with our second attack at all was a fluke…" Ayanami says with a sour expression, arms crossed over her chest. "Hmpf," comes from Shikinami, "You're stupid."

"Come now, don't be like that," Nagato says, smiling down at the pale blue-haired Ayanami, the red-haired Shikinami and the brown-haired Makinami, "All I'm saying is that had you taken a more stealth-oriented approach to your attack you could've avoided damage. Any advantage you give your enemy will work heavily against you, and letting them know from which direction you'll attack is a great advantage for them. Circle her and attack from every side; it'll confuse her and leave her nowhere to run from you."

Shikinami shrugs and brushes a stray wisp of hair from her face and over her left ear, "That's more said than done," she mumbles, sullenly, and the two others nod in equally down-cast agreement. Nagato shakes her head, replying in a calm tone, "But you did not even try, did you?"

"We know what we're capable of and not," says Shikinami; she's avoiding Nagato's gaze by taking a good long while to elaborately clean her glasses. The purple-haired battleship Mental Model knows that's about as white-faced a lie as they get, but decides to not admonish her for it and instead says that, "There's a difference in knowing what you can and can't do, and knowing how to make the best of it. If you three just sit down and _think_ a little more often I believe you would learn a little more from your experiences."

The three destroyers all look down at their feet, then at one another, and then Ayanami speaks up, still with a slightly sullen air but she sounds honest enough, "Okay, we'll remember it. Sorry we screwed up."

"Nothing to apologize for, you did win after all," Nagato replies with a kind little smile, "Now go and practice your artillery crews so you are ready in case you have an encounter with Hoel and Willy Dee later."

Ayanami waves to her two sisters and power up her engines, pulling into a sharp turn away from Nagato; then something catches her eye, like a bump in the perfectly calm ocean, coming straight towards them. Then there's another one, and another one, and another one… She spins on her heel and screams at the top of her lungs out over both the physical ocean and over the fleet's intercom: "LIVE TORPEDOES! EVERYONE GET OFF YOUR ASSES AND MOVE!"

A deafening clamour rises on the intercoms as confusion breaks out, everyone shouting and asking questions instead of _moving_ like she said; being out of harm's way by sheer luck herself, she can only watch the torpedoes, designed for a stealth approach, light up golden as they come close to Nagato, and increase their speed tenfold for the final distance, and Ayanami's torpedo alert goes off, too little too late. But as they close on the massive battleship an aura of purplish energy starts enveloping the ship, starting from the keel and moving over the ship; Ayanami can only hope the Klein field will go up in time to halt the torpedoes.

Then suddenly one of Nagato's rear six-inch secondary guns turns towards the torpedo coming at Nagato's rearmost quarter, looking like it'll impact before the Klein field is up; the gun partially disassembles from its housing, the different parts being held together by bits of energy like electricity arcing between wires, and it fires. The shell strikes the torpedo dead-on, breaking it in two and sending the warhead to the bottom; then the Klein field with a flash comes to fully envelope Nagato and the torpedoes impact with a series of dull thuds that causes the ocean to tremble. When the giant plumes of water send up by the explosions settle, however, Nagato seems alright.

Then there's a tingling sensation at the back of Ayanami's mind, and she's pulled from the Model Space and into the Mental Space, where almost everyone have gathered, in different states of anger and confusion. It very quickly becomes clear, however, that they have just been subjected to a quite deliberate attack.

By another Fog warship.

"Who would dare attack one of their own?! Is this some kinda' sick joke?!" Fargo growls, and stomps past Arizona and Nagato to tower over Ayanami, "You saw the torpedoes first! No idea who launched 'em?" As a response Kinugasa steps up in between Ayanami and Fargo at this, separating the blue-haired destroyer and the chalk white-haired cruiser, and hisses, "She already told you all she knows, Fargo. Calm down!"

"What are we to do about it then?!" Huntington, Fargo's sister ship, shouts from behind Arizona, "I say we sortie against this asshole right now!"

"I agree with Huntington, shockingly enough," Belfast says in much calmer tones, hands clasped smartly behind her back, "We can't let them prepare for another surprise attack."

"What about our wounded then?" says Zulu, one of Warspite's two Tribal-class destroyers, her hair short-cut and purple-blue, "My sister ship Mohawk was almost done in by one of those torpedoes, and Arizona has lost her propulsion! We can't leave them with their asses hanging in the air like that!"

"So, we send half the fleet," Fargo says, a little calmed down now, "Leave a pair of destroyers, a cruiser and the battleships here while a fast cruiser and destroyer force hunt down whoever did this!"

"It's not a terrible idea," Nagato mumbles, deeply sunken into her own thoughts, and Kinugasa steps into the middle of the room with a fiery look in her eyes, "I'll lead that force! I'll take Ayanami, Shikinami, Fargo and Belfast and Hoel with me and we'll find the perpetrator!"

Huntington turns to look at Kinugasa with a deep frown, "Hey, what about me? I gotta' come along as well!" Kinugasa however shakes her head and points at Belfast, "She's the only one here that has Vigilance, and this opponent seem to like torpedo attacks. She needs to come along, and we can't leave the rest without cruiser support."

Huntington sighs in frustration but doesn't argue, and Kinugasa takes a look around the room for further argument, finds none, and turns to the three battleships sitting around the room's little table, "Do I have permission to proceed?" They all nod, and Kinugasa is at once gone, along with Fargo, Belfast, Hoel, Ayanami and Shikinami. Nagato nods to herself and leaves as well, returning to her still-chaotic bridge; she may not have sustained any damage, luckily, but the crew still seem a bit rattled and nervous. Not surprising really, to them the torpedoes struck not half a minute earlier; she's met with the captain's stern gaze as she returns to the Model Space, "What is the matter? Some sort of trick to toy with your humans, hm?!"

Nagato calmly shakes her head, and points out to where the torpedoes came from, "No, this was an attack launched by an unknown party."

"For your sake," the captain says with a finger raised threatenigly towards Nagato, "You better not be lying. A crewman is dead in the defence of this vessel, and I'll have the head of whomever forced his hand!"

Nagato frowns. In the confusion of the attack her concentration must have slipped, "How?" The captain beckons for her to follow as he steps out of the bridge and out on the observation plattform outside; he points down to one of Nagato's rearmost six-inch secondary gun barbettes, "That shot that destroyed one of the torpedoes? The gun didn't fire itself. A man had to activate the disassembling mechanism and then fire the gun manually."

Nagato blinks, and then lowers her eyes. Doing that is stricktly forbidden, the energy keeping the parts together will fry a human alive; however the gun would not have been able to depress enough to fire at the torpedo under regular circumstances. She clasps her hands together and meets her captain's pained eyes, not knowing entirely how to react, but he speaks up first, "I know it's in the job to lose men, but I never expected an assault like this, not now. Pardon me."

"We will find out who did this, captain, you have my word," Nagato says in response, nodding solemnly for emphasis.

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– –

Kinugasa scans the horizon yet again, with every sensor at her disposal. Still nothing. Then she feels a tingle at the back of her neck, vaguely familiar, and she impatiently accepts the invitation; she stands at the edge of the blueish room, and on the opposite side stands a woman slightly taller than her, dressed in a corset, skirt and cloak, a little like a trenchcoat. They are all of a blue that borders on black, in stark contrast to her short-cut blonde hair. Kinugasa humms at the sight, a little surprised and dryly amused. "I must say, I wasn't expecting _you_ to be behind this, old friend."

"You should not look so surprised, Kinugasa. I am a woman of principle. This... This abomination of yours... I thought you were a woman of honour." There's clear disdain in her voice. "Tsk," Kinugasa waves her hand dismissively, "This 'abomination' as you call it has nothing to do with honour. As if you understood honour to begin with."

"No... I've always thought of it as an idiotic concept, and now here we are. We have always hated one another, so let's be honest..." The blonde tilts her head down and to the side a little, giving Kinugasa an 'over-the glasses' look, "Weapon to weapon. You've always wanted it this way, havn't you, like it's supposed to be?"

Kinugasa glares over at the blonde at the other side of the room, nails digging into her palms in rising fury, "And you ambush us, attack my comrades, just to draw _me_ out?! For some personal vendetta? Fog ships have never fought before! Have you no shame at all?!"

The woman only shakes her head, maintaining only the faintest of satisfied little smirks, "This is greater than either of _us_ , sister. I'm just an opportunist taking advantage of a chance to set right an idiot like you without risking a severe reprimand."

Kinugasa huffs out a breath in delicately controlled anger, growls, "We are done here," and then is gone. The blonde remains for a moment, looking out into the vast white nothingness beyond the room, mumbling with a smirk "No peace in our time."

She then leaves the Mental Space and is back on her bridge; looking around, she imagines it full of people in silly hats, and barks out an order at these imaginary people: "Kanonen einlegen! Zeilentfenung: drei und zwanzig tausend! Feuer!" She laughs at the whole idea with disdain as halos of gleaming golden light pulse out from her and surrounds her, bringing to life the engines, the gun turrets, the very hull of her comes to life, along the sides of which along with an Iron Cross gleaming black, gray and gold reads the name: "Admiral Hipper".

 **End of chapter one.**


	3. 2) The hunt for Hipper

**The Human-Fleet of Fog unification conflict, chapter 2:**

 **The hunt for Hipper.**

The captain paces back and forth across the bridge, hands clasped behind his back and his beady little eyes squinting down at the floor in front of him; Nagato watches him silently, calm and composed. The man eventually stops and throws a look at her, "A Fleet of Fog warship, hm? And you're telling me that inter-fleet fighting is unheard of? What about the I-401?"

"The I-401 was officially considered a rogue to the rest of the fleet, an ally of the human nations and not a Fog warship anymore," Nagato says, "She had made her intentions to serve human interest over the Fleet as a whole quite clear. This, however…" She falls silent, hesitating. The captain grunts an acknowledgement, stroking a hand down over his bushy moustache and shaved jaw, his tone is severe as he replies, "It's not just a matter of sides this time, of strategic conquest. This was an attack on diplomatic relations, on Fleet-human interests."

She nods, her lips forming a thin line below her nose. The captain turns around completely to face Nagato, a grave expression beneath his captain's hat and thick brows, "I had you lot figured for machines who regarded yourselves little more than weapons designed to serve this… This Admiralty code, directed by whomever claimed supreme leadership. This outreach program was directly approved by Yamato as far as I understood; do weapons disobey orders?"

Nagato's nostrils flare with irritation and she shakes her head, "During our war with Humanity we evolved. We did not always possess these Mental Models, it was something we created for ourselves when we came to the conclusion that self-awareness and real intelligence would provide us with Humanity's tactical flexibility. In that moment we also grew personalities, and became more than just the sum of our parts, but this is something _not all_ are willing to realize."

The captain grumbles thoughtfully and strokes his moustache, staring down at some random point on the deck next to Nagato; this and his somewhat hunched stance really gives him the appearance of being Nagato's grumpy old grandpa, or at least that's what Nagato has heard whispered around the ship, not that she understands what it means. "Weapons not only with enough firepower to lay the world a-waste, but people's whimsical desire to use it… Hrm. Very well." He straightens out, hands clasped behind his back, "I am glad you are being honest with me, ma'am. Any, hrm… Someone lesser might have tried to keep this under wraps."

Nagato nods, producing a moment's small smile, "You would have figured it out yourselves sooner or later, I believe. Let us return to our duties, captain: I am sure you are anxious to see our squadron battle-ready again as soon as possible."

– –

–

–

–

– –

Hoel scans the horizons yet again. For the last few hours there has been almost half a dozen skirmishes with the enemy squadron, destroyer patrols that come to poke at the cruisers who retreat at the first sign of trouble. They follow them, sometimes finding the Hipper's main force and are driven off, and the process is repeated. It's a game of cat and mouse with the destroyers being used as the fleet's eyes; to Hoel, an ideal scenario. She never felt like the combat simulations, or even the brief war against the human fleets really stretched her tactical capacity as far as it could, but now things have gotten truly interesting.

"Aren't you even a little disturbed that we're fighting other Fog ships, Hoel?"

She's snapped out of her thoughts by Makinami who's sailing alongside her; they are patrolling the cruisers' northern flank while Shikinami and Ayanami are out patrolling the eastern flank; Hipper who was last spotted moving northward with its screen of destroyers. "No, not really," she replies, "It's a challenge just like any other. Who we're fighting doesn't really matter to me." Makinami huffs contemptuously, turning her head away to peer at one of the screens surrounding her, "So you would just as well destroy me, huh?"

Hoel perks an eyebrow, glancing over at Makinami through the spray being kicked up by her bow as they speed along the ocean. "If the situation call f-" she starts but is interrupted by an alarm going off to the top right of her own screen. "Situational Awareness alert! Enemy scanners have me spotted! Hard turn starboard, Makinami!"

A little startled, the Japanese Fog destroyer doesn't argue and her ship pulls into so hard a turn that she kicks up water as if skidding over snow. Then two targets appear on the edge of her scanners; two German Type 1936B class destroyers come into view on the horizon, sailing on a course roughly parallel with Hoel and immediately they open up with their five-inch guns. All their fire is focused on the Hoel, however, and a grin spreads across her face. _Excellent…_ She turns to the other destroyer, "Just like I planned now! I'll draw them off and you circle around them!"

Nodding, Makinami goes into a wide turn and takes on a north-north-easterly course. Hoel had noticed during the skirmishes that the German destroyers left a significantly larger scanner print than Makinami, comparable to Hoel herself, and reasoned that if she moved ahead of Makinami then Hoel would be detected first and could redirect Makinami so that she wouldn't be detected; Hoel would then draw off the German destroyers and Makinami could turn around and go wide, going behind and past them to establish scanner contact with Hipper unnoticed. Looking behind her Hoel can see now how Makinami scoots off into the distance, rapidly shrinking into a speck on the horizon as the two destroyers shred over a hundred meters' distance each second going at near flank speed away from one another.

Hoel nods, satisfied, and turns to the two destroyers off in the distance; thinking her alone, they are closing in for the kill, raining down shells that explode with bursts of azure blue beneath the waves. She materializes down on the bridge amidst the busy bridge staff; the men are all at action stations and the guns are loaded. She turns to her captain, a short middle-aged man with a pronounced unibrow and a swagger stick, "Captain, Operation: Master key is a go. We will hold the enemy here for however long is required, awaiting Makinami's return."

The captain nods curtly and turns to the navigation officer, barking "XO, you heard the lady! Zig-zag maneuvers, if those interlopers as much as scratch the paint I'll have you keelhauled!" with a cheerful grin that makes Hoel frown momentarily with disappointment; he would have been much more appropriate a captain for Fargo or Huntington, she thinks.

The destroyer pulls into a turn beneath their feet and the guns ring out, blasting back at the approaching German destroyers in the distance, peppering them with every weapon in the Hoel's arsenal; missile silos arranged along her flanks open up and even the small 40mm anti-aircraft guns mounted along the ship's centre blaze away, filling the space between the three ships with shot and shell. _They're not even bothering to zig-zag to avoid our fire_ , Hoel thinks to herself, wrinkling her nose in disgust over such prideful tactics. She shakes her head and returns to focus on fighting and to buy time for Makinami.

–

–

Kinugasa, at the lead of their little formation, follows Makinami's transponder signal intently. North-north-east, north-east, north, north-west… And then suddenly she calls out over the intercom, "I've found 'em! Hipper along with escorts, and they're right on top of you, watch out!"

Suddenly several contacts appear on Kinugasa's own scanners and she can see muzzle flashes on the horizon; the first shells fly right over Kinugasa's head and straddle Belfast who is sailing behind her; the next volley strike with laser precision, impacting against the beige-white ship's Klein field. _Damn her, she's crossed the T on us!_ Kinugasa thinks bitterly as her own guns retaliate, a mere 4 eight-inch shells for every 8 that the Hipper can fire at them while going broadside on like this, and her own guns aren't as accurate as the Hipper's to begin with.

"What are your orders, Kinugasa?" Belfast shouts over the com link. "Shall we turn our broadsides to her and engage?"

"Agreed! Prepare to-" she begins, but then a thought strikes her. "Or perhaps not… That's what she expects us to do in this circumstance, wouldn't you agree Belfast?"

"Yes, and that's because if we don't then we'll be destroyed without so much as bloodying Hipper's nose!" Belfast retorts, emphasized with another volley raining down over her and weakening her Klein field further. Kinugasa shakes her head, a grin growing on her face, "No, we continue on! Right down her throat!" She spins on her heel, staring out through the hail of gunfire towards the Hipper in the far distance. _How ironic, my friend, that I'll defeat you with the same tactics we used to defeat the humans…_

"Are you mad?!" Belfast shouts, the two buns she's put her hair up into frayed and messed up from artillery fire, "Did you not listen to what I just said?!"

"I heard you," Kinugasa replies, confident, "Hipper's advantage is accuracy at great range, but we have a lot more firepower at our disposal than her if we close in! You remember how we first defeated the humans during the Great Battle, right?"

"Of course I do."

"The humans had designed their navy around maximum first-strike firepower and to destroy the enemy without having to face effective retaliation, so we simply charged right at their fleet, weathered the storm, and decimated it."

"We were not fighting Fog warships with wave-force armour and photon cannons back then, Kinugasa!"

"Yes, but now we have the numerical advantage instead. For the Code's sake, initiate protocol 4 if you're feeling so useless! Let's use our missiles while our guns are not as effective." Without waiting for Belfast's reply Kinugasa takes herself to the bridge, addressing her captain, "Mr. Kurita, clear the deck! We're launching the Red Lance missiles!"

The tall and gaunt man before her nods, back straight as a pine, and turns around to bark out orders; men and women outside on the decks hurry inside the ship through the closest hatch, locking it soundly behind them. Then lids arranged in neat rows the deck open up, revealing the pointed tips of missiles coloured military green with crimson headlights glowing in the afternoon gloom, the ship reverberating with an electronic whirring. On the Belfast and Huntington the same is happening; then like a flock of birds scared out of a tree they all burst out of their silos with a great roar and thin contrails of white smoke that cloak the three cruisers in a veil of slowly dissipating fog, above them the deadly projectiles soaring. They go first upwards and then abruptly turn to charge down towards Hipper in the distance, having spread out in a great sweeping arc in the skies above.

–

–

Hipper stands at the top of her starboard rangefinder, cloak waving and flowing around her from the raging wind when she travels near flank speed. Then she sees how a swarm of red lights take off from her adversaries and cover the heavens; a barrage of missiles she could impossibly all shoot down using her point-defence systems. She huffs contemptuously and throws her arms up above her head; great halos of gold surround her and expand, layer upon layer until she's surrounded by a veritable dome of gold rings so great they are large enough to encompass her ship body's entire size. Her turrets cease fire and detach from the barbettes, top and bottom separating as well as the two guns per turret sliding out of their mounts; the pieces of the four turrets align themselves in orbit around the Hipper's superstructure, spinning with increasing speed all along one of the halos, the gun barrels pointing outwards.

The superstructure itself then starts changing, opening up and revealing a large, oval-shaped object that aligns itself with the tips pointing up and down in the middle of the spinning turret pieces. Electricity cracks over its surface and it flashes bright purple; an energy beam every colour of the rainbow blasts out from the Hipper, reaching out across the darkening skies towards the approaching missiles, sweeping across the sky like the stroke of a sword. The beam leaves a contrail of explosions in its wake, fiery bright flashes of white; heat sinks jettison steam along her flanks as the ship slowly reverts back to her normal configuration. Still standing on top of the rangefinder with a small, satisfied grin plastered on her face, "Kinugasa, you didn't see that one coming, did you? And I'm not done yet. One plan for every outcome…"

–

–

Kinugasa stares in stupefied disbelief at the fading glow in the sky halfway between her and Hipper. Huntington at the rear of their little column is the first one to speak, her voice near savage with fury, "What in the Depths was that?! What's she gonna pull on us next, corrosion warhead seagulls?!"

Belfast mutters something to herself with a grim and irritated expression, and then looks up, "She's armed with one of the new variable geometry super-graviton cannons. She can fire it at any power level she wants with a recharge time relative to how powerful the shot is, and aim it three hundred and sixty degrees around her ship, if I recall correctly. As se saw, she can make deploying the weapon at lower power levels with relative ease."

Kinugasa curses, and sweeps her arm dramatically towards the two cruisers behind her, "If she fires again and at full power when we're in a column like this she'll destroy us all with one shot! All ships, train guns to port and follow me!" Cutting through a several metre tall wave generated by Hipper firing the cannon Kinugasa pulls into a hard turn to starboard and blazes away at Hipper with the furious roar of gunfire; the Belfast and the Huntington swiftly follow, raking the Hipper's Klein field from stem to stern with their photon cannons.

They only manage to turn for a moment or two however before the ocean is suddenly cut in two, pressed away to all sides by a glittering energy field. Belfast is caught dead in the middle of it, the rear quarter of Kinugasa and Huntington's bow as well; the intense energy field suspends Belfast hanging in the air, Kinugasa's engines fight futilely to escape and Huntington's momentum swings her rear around, trapping most of her inside the field as well.

"She planned this all along!" Huntington screams furiously, waving her fist in Hipper's general direction while at the same time fighting to maintain her balance as the ship heaves and rocks beneath her. More collected outwardly but still flushed with fury as well Belfast continues, "She would've had us all dead in her sights if not for having to destroy our missiles first and giving us time to react…"

Kinugasa growls under her breath and throws her hands up above her head, halos coloured dark obsidian forming and expanding all around her; her Klein field manifests fully all around the old cruiser, energy rippling over the sheath of energy. Slowly but surely she starts rotating where she's suspended mid-air within the power field being generated by Hipper. Revolver magazines rise out of her hull and load a series of bulbous, rounded torpedoes into the ship's torpedo launchers in the back.

"Focus all your fire, everyone! Corrosive torpedoes away!" Kinugasa barks over her shoulder and then makes a motion with her hands; the torpedoes are expelled from their launchers with small puffs of chemical smoke, and their rocket engines ignite mid-air, sending them soaring towards the Hipper right down the trench made up from her energy field as the super-graviton cannon charges up to fire. The Hipper's escorts turn their guns up and fire against the missiles, filling the air not only with the crackling energy of the Hipper's energy build-up but also with explosions and streaks of laser fire seeking the deadly projectiles.

"You struggle in vain, Kinugasa!" Hipper shouts over the ocean, a triumphant little smile on her face, "Your brute force cannot stop tactical genius like mine."

Kinugasa looks up, teeth gritted with effort and frustration, "Your overconfidence will be your undoing, Hipper! Do you think you can take on us all alone and win?!"

"I've already separated you this much, who's to say how much I can toy with your damaged, limping battleships back at the Marianas?" Hipper retorts with a contemptuous toss of her head, clearing her flowing golden hair from her face.

One by one the torpedoes are struck and fall inert to the ocean or detonate mid-air, blinding the crews of the Kinugasa in bright flashes of pinkish red. She counts down the torpedoes, "Four… Three… Two… One…" but when the fourth and final torpedo she launched is shot down, she sees that there are still torpedoes in the air, four more. They come in from the north and the east both, skidding across the surface of the ocean, and fire is shifted to them but Kinugasa can see already that it's too late.

"You will never get the chance, traitor!" she shouts, a small smirk growing on her face. "You lose!"

Hipper glances to the side for a moment, recognizing her imminent destruction evident by how she seems to calm down, her body language becoming softer and her expression neutral. She turns back to Kinugasa, "Why are you following Nagato into this? Do you have no self-respect?"

"I do, but I have not allowed it to blind me! Do you think we are so perfect?"

"You are attempting to repair what isn't broken, you fool!"

The torpedoes blaze through the gauntlet of artillery fire and three reach their mark; Hipper's Klein field stands wide open for them and they impact all over her form; the ship is completely obscured by the energy vortexes generated by the corrosion torpedoes, colouring the Pacific ocean red and pink. A moment later the energy built up by her super-graviton cannon is released all at once in a blast potent enough to completely vaporize the ships closest to Hipper and severely damage the ones a little further off.

The energy field suspending the cruisers in mid-air dissolves and the ocean rushes to fill the gap opened by Hipper; the cruisers are momentarily engulfed completely as they fall into the gap, but soon enough the surface breaks to let the three victorious cruisers out again; and on top of the Kinugasa's mainmast stands the black-haired mental model in her coal-and-gold uniform, clutching one half of the Hipper's Union core in her hands.

– –

–

–

–

– –

Arizona runs a hand through her fringe with a groan, massaging her right thigh with the other; it's bandaged and a crutch is leaning against the little table. Warspite sits opposite her, leaning her forehead against her knuckles and only looking up when Belfast returns again to the Mental Space. She says, "All the humans have been informed. They seem to have agreed altogether to stay."

A general sigh of relief goes through the room. Arizona's hand falls to her lap and she straightens out, composing herself, "Very well. And what of the burial ceremonies for the humans that were killed?"

"Burial by sea, they call it. We agreed upon enclosing each body in an empty missile casing, the humans will perform some rite or other, and then the casings with the body inside are deposited into the ocean." Belfast clasps her hands behind her back and walks up to stand behind Warspite. The latter rises from her chair, sweeping her eyes across the room, "I'll return to the Model Space and… Monitor the situation. I advise you all talk to your crews personally on this matter, a'right?"

Acknowledgements and nodding heads respond to her, and she nods her head back, satisfied. She vanishes, and Nagato rises as well from her chair, saying "I will contact Yamato at once," and vanishes as well. Kinugasa, who had been standing leaning against a pillar at the edge of the room but still fairly close to the table now also leaves, returning to her perch up on top of her mainmast. Back in the Model Space she's still clutching Hipper's broken Union core in both hands, gingerly almost as if it would explode if she handled it carelessly. She runs her right-hand index and middle finger over the Fleet of Fog sigil on the device's top and it lights up faintly; she then pulls out a small datachip from its underside, flat and oval in shape with a small half-sphere bulb on the bottom that goes from gold to white in her grasp.

She looks the datachip over with a small, satisfied smirk, saying, "Fortune favours those who evolve, Hipper," and then she throws the Admiral Hipper's Union core into the Pacific Ocean, leaving it to be crushed and ground to dust by the unforgiving depths of the sea, to rest alongside the humans she has killed.

 **End of chapter two.**


	4. 3) Divided

Author's note.

I dun' messed up! I posted the chapter before I actually checked it looked good on in my excitement _ But here it is anyway, with breaks to mark a scene change. Since isn't co-operating with me and allowing me to do it my usual way I'm using the in-build "horizontal line" feature instead - it still won't let me put more than one in for some god-damn reason, so this chapter won't be differentiating between perspective change within roughly the same scene and a complete scene change like I use to. Sorry for all that! plz no bully

End of author's note.

 **The Human-Fleet of Fog unification conflict, chapter 3.**

 **Divided.**

Having made enough repairs to get underway, the fleet limped to Taiwan, or what's left of it at least. Only a few small islands remain now, and on top of it the Fleet of Fog has constructed a naval supply and repair platform, fully automated. There Arizona and the others are fully restored, and the fleet was on its merry way again. In the meantime, Nagato attempts to contact Yamato…

Every surface in the room, her own shape included have been replaced with endlessly scrolling lines of code, green against a black background; an ethereal darkness clouds the Mental Space in every direction, rippled with arcs of chalk-white, always clinging to the edges of her vision. Three shapes stand beyond the pillars of the room, distinguishable only by their glowing red eyes and white hair flowing gently as if submerged in water; a fourth shape stands in the middle of the room, wearing an elaborate white dress, her hands clasped gently over her waist. She stands perfectly immovable, unresponsive to Nagato's desperate shouts and calls; she's almost completely unable to move, to reach Yamato's petrified shape.

A loud whining sound suddenly invades the Mental Space, rising fast in strength to become unbearable and with an agonized cry Nagato disconnects herself from the room, falling to her knees on the bridge; a startled murmur rises from the officers on duty and the captain steps forward, looking down at her, "What's the matter?"

Nagato's lips become a thin line. She takes a long breath in and out through her nose to calm herself, lets the pain in her mind recede before standing up and setting straight her red and black kimono, turning to the captain, "I am being jammed. Something is blocking my connection to the Mental Space; I cannot contact Yamato."

A second, slightly lower but more worried murmur replaces the old one and the captain turns his head up to look out through the bridge windows, stroking his moustache, "Figures… Do we know where she is located?" Nagato shakes her head, an unusually grim expression on her face, "No, I do not. Communication within the Mental Space is our usual method of acquiring one another's location when we are outside scanner range."

The captain curses under his breath as he takes a moment to stare down at the floor. Finding the floor unresponsive to his pleas for guidance he clasps his hands behind his back, looking up, "What do we do then? Do we have any idea of the size of the forces we're facing?" Nagato shakes her head again, clasping her hands over her waist, "We do not, and we have not decided upon a course of action yet either. Some want to spread out to find Yamato's fleet the old-fashioned way, some dislike the idea, some are… Indecisive."

"Yes," he mutters, "If we spread out the enemy can find and destroy us piecemeal. The Admiral Hipper found us here, we should assume we are being watched in some way. We can't split up."

"That is my opinion as well. Will you gather the other captains and confer with them?" Nagato says, "We cannot act just on our own feelings in this matter." The captain looks at her for a moment, a frown barely noticeable beneath his brows, and then he nods, and turns to his XO, saying, "Mr. Ikari, call the meeting; we will hold it in my quarters in one hour."

The man salutes and turns to another officer, while the captain turns back to Nagato, "I am sure they will see reason, ma'am. In the meanwhile, I suggest we return to Yokosuka. I'm sure the port officials would like to know we're at war again." At this a small frown grows on her face, "Do you not think that is a little extreme, captain?"

He shakes his head, "No. Communications with your high command are jammed; ominous quotes by the enemy suggesting a larger force is on the way; human lives have been lost and several Fog warships damaged and destroyed. I think that constitutes a declaration of war, ma'am."

* * *

Arizona paces back and forth across the entire length of the Mental Space, hands clasped tightly behind her back, while Warspite and Nagato watches; the latter stands a little ways off from the table at which Warspite is sitting. "At least _we_ can still communicate," Warspite mumbles grimly, fidgeting with one of the shoulder-straps of the plain, dark blue dress she's wearing.

"This is a disaster!" Arizona shouts at the top of her lungs in only mildly restrained fury, her knuckles going white from tension. "For all we know this is a tactic of Yamato's devising to weed out reformists and new-thinkers from the fleet and the whole rest of the Pacific patrol fleet is bearing down on us as we speak!"

Nagato shakes her head, "I doubt it. Yamato has always been an honest woman, it is not in her nature to scheme; she has also never been afraid of change. It was _her_ idea to create the first Mental Model, let us not forget."

"Yeah, yeah," Warspite mumbles, scratching the base of her neck as she straightens her back, "I say we don't jump to any conclusions, 'eh? We've still got a pretty sizable fleet here; a little lacking in destroyers maybe, but we can make due. I say let 'em come." Arizona spins on Warspite at that, sending her flowing blonde hair everywhere, "Right, that's what we're supposed to tell the authorities at Yokosuka? We're at war with a rogue element from the Fleet of Fog, we have no intel whatsoever on the enemy's strength and location, and no ability to call for reinforcements ourselves, but it's fine! We'll make out stand here and hope for the best!"

At that Warspite shoots out of her chair, standing in three quick strides so close to Arizona that their noses almost touch, "And do you have a better plan? It damn well doesn't seem like it!" Arizona pushes Warspite back with a shove against her shoulder, pointing an accusing finger at the hazel-haired battleship, "You listen to me; our situation is unquestionably dire, our tactical picture incomplete, but you still don't seem concerned! Whenever shit hits the fan, as the humans are so fond of saying, you just shrug and hope for the best! What kind of commander are you?!"

Arizona barely gets to finish her sentence before Warspite's right hand flashes into the air to strike the blonde, and she barely gets to start swinging before Nagato is up as well, saying, "Please, both of you, stand down," in tones so gentle she might as well have been talking about the weather over a cup of tea. Arizona and Warspite exchange a glare before stepping apart, the latter sitting back down. Nagato continues, "You both have a point. The situation is dire, but since there is very little we can do about it at the moment as I see it, we simply have to return to Yokosuka and, as it were, hope for the best. We might even be able to recruit the humans to help searching for Yamato's fleet."

Arizona looks at Nagato for a moment, grinding her jaw as she thinks; eventually she nods, clasping her hands behind her back, "Fine. There is no other course of action, really. I'll inform the rest; we go to Yokosuka and plan from there."

* * *

Belfast stands at the very edge of her bow, arms crossed bitterly across her chest. Wind throws her cyan ponytail around like a flag, very lively in contrast to her own unmoving and unsmiling form. A rough kilometre to her starboard Huntington and Fargo sail side by side, with Hoel and Willy Dee side by side in front; they are arguing over which course of action is sound in the face of this new threat. According to Kinugasa Hipper had said she considers herself an opportunist who was taking a chance for revenge 'without risking reprimand'. What it meant, they all assumed, is that she was not the only one preparing to attack this force; the fact that their long-range access to Menta Space communication is being jammed only supports this.

"We can't just sit on our asses waitin' to die!" Huntington argues, and Fargo follows up, "Best defence is a strong offence I always say! We took the fight to Hipper an' we sure as hell can do it again with these punks!"

"And give up our defender's advantage?" Hoel retorts with a dramatic wave of her hand, "We need more information, not launch ourselves on a wild chase across the Pacific and beyond based on the loose and open-to-interpretation threats made by a single enemy."

Belfast starts a little as she notices someone walking up to her. Of course, _being_ the ship she notices this as she passes the no.1 gun turret and turns her head well in time to spot her XO, a late middle-aged man with balding head and sharp features; a good soldier, Belfast had thought since the moment they met. He stops at a respectable distance and salutes, Belfast doing the same as she asks, "Commander Saul Hogan, anything to report?"

The man clasps his hands formally behind his back after saluting, replying with a shake of his head, "Nothing of note, ma'am. Ship's purring like a kitten, just-" but at that point he realizes who he's talking to and stammers "Ah- pardon my language, ma'am, I forget myself." It's never good saying that one of the ship's two commanders is purring like a kitten to her face, regardless of the fact that the commander also happens to be the ship itself.

Belfast cracks a small smile and nods appreciatively, "Apology accepted, commander, and at ease. Is there something you wish to say?" The man nods and comes up to stand a little closer, hands still clasped behind his back; he throws a glance over his shoulder towards the American ships in the distance before speaking up, not that _he_ can hear them, "I just wanted to say… On behalf of all the crew. We are humbled that you are standing up for us in this conflict, ma'am. Half the crewmembers and half the captains to boot thought you were going to dump us all on that repair yard and leave us to fend for ourselves until Lord knows when…"

Belfast's face loses the small smile that adorned it a moment earlier and she turns away from Saul, facing out over her bow where spray is kicked up onto the deck behind them. A moment's silence passes, the only noise being the low rumble of the engines below. "Yes," Belfast almost snaps out, her voice sharp yet subtly regretful, "There were talks about that option as well." She glances over at Saul for a moment, and quickly turns to avoid the poorly concealed shock in his eyes; at times like these he gets this staring, wild look about him, like an animal forced into a corner. Just his eyes betray him though, the rest of him keeps calm. He nods thoughtfully and turns to look out over the ocean as well, holding his chin high, "I understand that every option would be explored, ma'am."

"…Yes," Belfast replies, again, her own head tipping down slightly and she makes a marked effort to hide her face from her XO. "I am honoured, regardless, for your appreciation," she says as an attempt to change subject. Saul only nods curtly along with a hasty "Don't mention it, ma'am" before he turns to leave; Belfast's lips become a very thin line indeed as he disappears through a hatch, leaving Belfast alone again.

 _Maybe there is a method to Nagato's madness after all_ … She thinks to herself.

* * *

The fleet sailed on, and eventually reached Kagoshima, what's left of it anyway. After the rise in sea levels no more than an archipelago remains, which makes for prime hunting ground for destroyers. Ayanami, Shikinami and Makinami were directed to remain with the fleet along with Mohawk, who after Hipper's torpedo attack was operating with a skeleton crew because of heavy casualties, while the rest are sent into the archipelago.

Zulu, a Tribal-class destroyer and Mohawk's sister ship, has the lead. Her hair is platinum white, cut very short with a part of the right side of her scalp shaved altogether; like her sister ship she's dressed in a traditional office uniform, with a white shirt under a formal black suit and a skirt. When she first took on a crew her hair had been the same colour but not cut quite the same way, she had _just_ kept it very short, about an inch long, but many among her crew she had heard commenting that the two styles contrasted heavily. She got curious, and now she attracts sidelong glances even from her own captain, a headstrong if a little easily startled young man who always seem to carry something pointy in his pants; further investigation is _clearly_ required.

No more time for such thoughts, however, as her Situational Awareness protocol activates; she has been detected by a warship not equipped with her own fleet's IFF system. She barely gets time to rely this information to Hoel and William D. Porter who sails behind her before this long and massive slab of destroyer charges out from behind a nearby island, upon the superstructure of which stands a sturdily built young woman in a deep blue dress of some kind. "Hello, you!" she calls out, waving as the thing's five gun turrets turn to aim squarely at Zulu. The name 'Volta' is written on her bow.

 _It's a fuckin' Mogador-class destroyer…_ she thinks in dumbstruck horror as the blue-dressed girl goes on, "Figured we'd find you here. En garde!" and all hell breaks loose. All at once the four destroyers open fire, guns and autocannons and machineguns filling the space separating the Volta from the three others so full of red energy bolts it gets hard to see through. Zulu is riddled from stem to stern with shells of every calibre imaginable before she can get her Klein field up, severely crippling her ability to fight back as her central power systems take a severe beating. Safe behind the Klein field for now she kills her speed and falls back behind Willy Dee and Hoel who guns blazing charge the Volta, their hull markings glowing fiercely ultramarine blue.

Hoel materializes on top of her bridge structure and turns to Willy Dee sailing alongside, "All guns fire at will! We pursue and destroy the target aggressively before enemy reinforcements can reach the battle area, over."

"Copy that," Willy Dee replies with a curd nod of her head, and as the Volta pulls into a turn away from them in order to not run into a low island they fall in line, chasing the huge French destroyer off around a corner and disappearing from view.

* * *

Zulu comes rushing down the ladder, attracting several surprised looks at both how she can _run_ down a metal ladderway and the fact that she's there at all. The engine room is only dimly lit, a right mess; the hull breaches below the waterline have been sealed and water is being pumped out, one of her auxiliary generators have been cloven right in two by a shell that passed straight through her engine room without exploding, and a second shell that _did_ explode has torn so many holes, grooves and craters in the primary generator that you'd quite easily mistake it for the surface of the moon. A fire is raging across the far quarter of the room; men and women are fighting it with fire extinguishers, trying desperately to hold it off so that mechanics and electricians can work in relative safety on restoring the power generators.

Normally you couldn't access this area of course, so being down inside herself is still a slightly odd experience for Zulu. In order for a human crew to be feasible on board a Fog warship certain modifications had to be made; practically all space on the ship was taken up by something, most of the space that had been assigned for crew space on the original WW2 ships had been used to squeeze more weapons onto each ship, but some of them have been demounted from Zulu and the rest to accommodate a crew; they also had to be retrofitted with numerous interface systems so that the humans could actually use and manipulate systems aboard the Fog vessels. Otherwise this work would be carried out by special robots she would be equipped with.

Zulu waves briefly at the collected pairs of eyes staring at this secretary-esque little woman coming rushing down the ladder in high heels and everything and makes straight for the main generator. She throws a glance towards the chief technician working at a nearby tear in the generator casing, and then she pulls open a panel, eyeing the collection of crystalline tubes running through it; most of them are glowing an angry red, but some are inactive and visibly cracked. The chief technician makes a surprised noise and comes running over to her, waving his bony hands in warning, "No no no! We can't touch those, they'll fry you alive, they-!"

Zulu turns her head and flashes a grin, "I'm not made of flesh and bone, remember?" and then grabs the tube that's cracked the worst, tearing it out with a horrendous cacophony of noise; the crystal shatters completely in her hand and a droning noise like a taser but as loud as a motorcycle engine rises through the engine room. A dumbstruck and highly discomforted engineer hands Zulu a new, pristine crystal tube out of a locker that she slams it in to replace the old one, causing the droning noise to stop abruptly; the flow of red in the remaining tubes equalize and the room lights up, along with the automated fire suppression systems kicking in.

Zulu puts her hands at her hips and nods in satisfaction, cheerfully smiling at her chief technician; the man glances at the repaired power coupling and nods, relieved, "Well, thank goodness for you. If I would have been forced to make a manual bypass I'd be damned if it wouldn't have killed me in the process. Thank you, ma'am."

Zulu slaps him all friendly-like on the shoulder, "Can't have my crew dying on me, now can I? Mohawk would never let me live it down."

The technician frowns. Zulu snickers to herself and waves a gloved hand dismissively in his direction. She looks around the engine room fully and then turns back to the chief technician, saying "Come on, let's get my shaft up and pumping again so we can get underway."

The chief technician's frown deepens, "Pardon..?"

"The turbine shafts? Part of my secondary generators?" Zulu says over her shoulder as she makes for the ladder again, "You might want to watch out through, the surrounding folds have gotten very hot."

And just like that she struts out of main engineering, discharging comments such as "Insert those tubes very gently, please" and "watch it, don't you know it's dangerous working with electricity when it's all wet and damp inside?" to the damage control crews, with the baffled eyes of the chief engineer dug into her neck; the crewman who handed her the replacement tube earlier barely manages to stifle a laughter as he goes back to work.

 **End of chapter 3.**


	5. 4) Blossom

Author's note

Sweet baby jesus, it's been a while hasn't it? Yeah. Yours is a fickle author god. I'm sorry, but that's just how I work these days. I'll continue working on this story for now but I'd be surprised at myself to see another chapter out _too_ soon. Sorry. At least the chapter is a little longer than usual, I guess? :P

End of author's note

 **The Human/Fleet of Fog unification conflict, chapter 4; Blossom.**

"What the hell happened?!"

"No idea what you're saying sir, my ears are still ringing!"

"Christ. Serviceman Burnside, can _you_ give me a goddamn status report?!"

"It appears we're lucky to be alive, sir! We took a hit, but the shell passed through this compartment without striking and igniting a single torpedo, sir!"

"In other words, thank God for the law of infinite probability. Alright, ten-hut maggots! You have exactly the time it takes me to dial up the bridge, to prepare me a full damage report! Move it, cowboys!"

"Yes, sir!"

"Bridge, this is torpedo magazine 1! We have sustained a direct hit and half my team are dead, but there appears to be no immediate risk of detonation among the stored torpedoes, at least on first glance! Yes, serviceman Chung is recovering from an itsy bitsy ear ache right now and is getting under way TO CHECK THE GODDAMN TORPEDOES BEFORE THEY BLOW US ALL UP! Excuse me, sir? Yes, sir, I-…"

The line cuts out and suddenly a short woman appears, with pink pigtails and dressed in a strange uniform, made of an army jacket, short skirt and high stockings, all pale blue, as well as rounded metallic plates on her shoulders, knees and elbows that are also painted blue with two lines of white and red going down on each; Willy Dee looks around the ruined torpedo magazine with a distraught look on her face, fists clutched together close to her chin, mumbling something about "all my torpedoes, what have I done…"

"Commander, what are you doing down here?" serviceman Burnside asks, baffled, to which the sergeant spins on his heel and barks "Was that the torpedoes you're supposed to be checking that I just heard speaking, serviceman Burnside, because I sure as hell hope it wasn't you!"

Willy Dee turns towards the three sailors in the room, looking a little spooked for a second, "No, please calm down all of you! I just wanted to come down and see the damage for myself, and-" she's interrupted mid-sentence by the ship shaking and tilting to the side; the metal frame creaks and complains, visibly warping and bending. "Geezus, we're going to be destroyed! We'll be killed!" serviceman Chung screams, gripping for dear life onto a torn piece of safety railing; as the ship shook he was thrown off his feet and is now hanging halfway out through the hull breach caused by the shell that struck the ship earlier. The damaged railing twists further and one of the bolts securing it to the deck snaps, sending him out through the hole in the ship, but suddenly Willy Dee is there, reaching out with speed and reflex so quick that it barely registers to the other two present. With a powerful heave that defies her lithe form Chung has been chucked back into the ship and gotten proper grip around an empty torpedo shelf.

Willy Dee stands up, perfectly unfazed by the deck's 20 degree tilt, and turns around to the three that are looking on her in awe, "Let's get you out of here! Damage control can secure this place; you three need to get to sickbay, okay?"

The sergeant makes a hasty salute along with a snappy "Yes, ma'am!" and rushes up to the bulkhead door, spinning open the valve-like handle that unlocks it; Willy Dee steps up to the still stunned-looking serviceman Chung and helps him to his feet with a cheerful smile, "Why the long face? We're all crew, and crew is family. We look out for our own, yes?"

Chung only manages a surprised nod before Burnside comes up and takes his other hand, dragging him off; Willy Dee follows them through and closes the bulkhead door behind them, running through the still listing corridors. "We took a second hit towards the bow, and the flooding is weighing us down to starboard," she says as they go, everyone but her being flung into the right wall as the ship shakes yet again. "Make that a second _and a third_ ," she adds worriedly, and then as they all come up to the intersection that will take them to the infirmary she stops. "Go on, go get your wounds seen to," she tells them, gesturing down to the left.

"Is that an order?" serviceman Burnside dares ask to a very surprised Willy Dee, and you can see the sergeant growing red behind him at such an act of insubordination; before he can get his hands on Burnside however the pink-haired woman raises a hand to the sergeant and asks Burnside, tentatively, "Why do you ask?"

"If damage is so severe down in the bow, let us go help seal the leak!" Chung joins in, "None of us are badly hurt either way." Willy Dee hesitates and there the sergeant sees his chance to step in, putting his hands on the servicemen's shoulders and growling, "Excuse the insolent behaviour of my subordinates, ma'am, I can promise it will not happen a second time." Willy gets an almost terrified look on her face, shaking her head, "No no no! Th-there's no need for that, it's fine, sergeant, I'm just… Not sure I can let you run off like that. It'd be irresponsible." Chung shakes hus head at that, "But you said we look out for our own, ma'am. We can do it!"

Willy Dee looks between the two energetic sailors and their somewhat subdued sergeant and shines up with a bright smile, clapping her hands together, "That's so brave of you! Yes, please, of course you can go, _all three_ of you! Just please try not to be in the damage control team's way, okay?"

The two servicemen exchange smirks and a nod while the sergeant's expression pales somewhat at the mention of 'all three'. "Great, ma'am! We'll set you right as rain!" Chung and Burnside proclaim in unison, and run off down the hallway; their sergeant rolls his eyes, gives Willy Dee a very formal salute, and then runs after them.

She remains for a moment, beaming a proud smile down the corridor they disappeared through, but then a tingle at the back of her head takes her out of it and she transfers her form to the top of her no.2 gun turret; the sounds of battle muffled and dampened within the metallic recesses of her body now wash over her like a tidal wave. Her main guns are keeping up a constant barrage of gunfire against the French heavy destroyer in the distance, breaking up the rattle of her 40mm autocannons and the roar of her engines every few seconds with high-pitched, drawn-out thuds as her photon cannons fire. Water is being pumped out of her starboard flank and the list is slowly correcting itself, she can feel how the ship's control becomes quick and smooth again instead of dragging to starboard and yanking sideways every time the ships ploughs through one of the meter-tall waves.

Hoel is charging through the gunfire ahead of Willy Dee, her darker ultramarine blue halos surrounding her like a cage. She turns around, profiled for a moment against an explosion and her Klein Field behind her, shouting "I am still unable to raise reinforcements! Analysis of my CCS is complete; it is being jammed, over!"

"The Concept Comm System is too robust to be blockad from a distance," Willy Dee replies, thinking. "The jamming must therefore be local, over."

"Copy that! We better defeat the enemy fast," Hoel says, and then has to turn her attention away and the enemy once again; Mogador's launch tubes are opening up and with a great rush of smoke a dozen missiles surge up from her, the projectiles twisting and spinning around one another in a wonderful display of lights and motion; Willy Dee had once observed two of her crew put on some sort of show down in the mess hall one evening, 'ballet' they called it. And now, when as she watches the deadly swarm of ordnance maneuvre around one another so as to confuse Hoel's point-defence targetting systems, neon lights illuminating them against the early dawn, Willy Dee realises she thinks it looks beautiful, absolutely gorgeous. Hoel throws her left hand up into the air dramatically and along with it the 40mm autocannons sitting amidships open fire along with missiles of her own shooting up to meet those of Mogador. The beautiful display is promptly broken up by missiles intermixing and exploding, Hoel's weapons tearing the show apart; some make it past her defences and slam into her already weakened Klein field which starts to fail, Hoel shouting desperately that her processing power cannot keep up and that she requires support.

Willy Dee grimaces, but then inspiration strikes her; she leaps off her gun turret and _through_ the windows of the bridge without as much as scratching them, landing neatly in front of her very captain, a young man nearly twice her own size due to a copious amount of muscle and height. She salutes him formally and then says "Captain, our communications are jammed locally and the outcome of the battle hangs in the balance; what should we do?"

The fact that she just comes flying through the front bridge window every now and then still isn't something everyone on the bridge has gotten quite used to yet, but the captain doesn't waste time on surprise and stomps up to the front window that Willy Dee had earlier leapt through, staring out into the battle with squared shoulders. After a moment he speaks up, "We're currently operating under protocol to eliminate any enemy presence in the area per our usual orders as we cannot contact the fleet, correct? The protocol stated that _when out of contact, carry on with the mission_?"

"Yes," she replies.

"What if I suggested we find and destroy the hostile jamming device, ma'am? Is there a way to locate it?"

She blinks. "W-well, I know a trick that might allow us to determine its' location, yes, but we'd be leaving our rears exposed to raking fire from Mogador if we retreat; moreover it would consume a lot of my available power to find the enemy jammer, as well as processing power, captain. The sensible option would be to attempt to neutralize the local enemy warship and then search for the signal jammer, as attacking the jammer while we still are being harried by enemy gunfire seems very risky; our protocols suggest there is too high risk outweighing the benefits; what would be the net gain?"

The captain turns around and adjusts his commander's hat, face stoic, "Well ma'am, if I recall correctly that's what we're here for, to teach you schoolgirls how to play risk-reward and not just stick to being safe. If you want my advice you'll find that jammer and blow it to bits, come hell or high water; If we defeat Mogador whatever is jamming your signals will likely have ample time to withdraw, and can continue to isolate us from our reinforcements if we encounter another hostile patrol, but if we surprise the enemy and take it out now we can get a complete tactical picture and warn the fleet. We risk being destroyed before this can be achieved, but that's what we humans do."

"Ohh, you are all so brave!" Willy Dee squeals, hands clasped together and eyes practically shining with joy and admiration, "We're gonna' survive this and then I'm going to reward you all! With pies! It'll be great! You're the best, you lot! Now let's fight!" She beams a last smile across the bridge and then is gone, appearing again on top of her no.2 gun turret to shout at Hoel, "Cover me! I'm going to generate a Grid Radiation Pulse, over!"

The other destroyer stares over at Willy Dee, questioning this plan with an almost flabbergasted expression, but after Willy Dee has had a chance to explain herself, Hoel reluctantly agrees; and so Willy Dee straightens out where she stands, on top of her bridge building now, arms flung wide apart. Her hull comes a-lit with Fog markings, her halo expanding into the shape of a funnel facing upwards while Hoel zips in between her and Mogador, focusing her strength on maintaining her faltering Klein field. Energy begins to sparkle between Willy's hands and arc up to her halo, a high-pitched whirring sound building up all around her. Then energy suddenly strikes out from the little ship like bolts of lightning accompanied by a dull thud that sends a shockwave across the water. The energy arcs into the sky until it's become a dark blue glow against the bright blue heavens; but then it starts to gather together again, coalescing into straight lines that all seem to spread out from one point. "There you are!" Willy exclaims, and shifts herself again to her bridge and points out through the window towards a not-too-distant island behind which all the lines seem to gather, "Behind there, captain! Let's get 'em!"

"Very good, ma'am! Helmsman, bring us around and rev up the engines! Gunnery officer, I want the Devil himself up the enemy's behind the nanosecond we come within line of sight, do _not,_ I repeat do _not_ wait for target confirmation; every second _will_ count! Ma'am, do us the honour of relying the battle plan to the _Hoel_ , please."

Willy Dee nods enthusiastically, but before she can contact Hoel over the CCS she feels that tingle at the back of her head and arrives at the edge of that white, featureless room. Hoel is already approaching from the other end, back rigid and gaze fixed squarely on Willy, who hesitates where she stands. "What is it you think you are doing, William D. Porter? This is a high-danger situation, why do you defer to the humans for such critical decisions?"

"W-well... I think that it would be a waste of resources to just have them stand around doing nothing..."

"Their methods of communication are too slow and their desicionmaking takes too much time compared to our processing power; this conversation alone would have taken valuable seconds for them whereas we are having it in one of their eye-blinks. _That_ is a waste of time we don't have." Hoel puts her hands at her sides, face hard but not per say angry.

"I..." Willy Dee fidgets with her fingers, looking anywhere but into Hoel's eyes; the skirt or gloves of other destroyer's U.S. navy-style dress uniform, the sixth pillar from the right behind Hoel...

"This is not the time for a field trial, sister," Hoel says with an air of finality, "I'm not your commander and can't order you to do anything, but I'd ask you as a comrade to not put too much stock in human crisis management capabilites."

"Now you wait!" Willy Dee suddenly bursts out, to Hoel's mild surprise, "The humans' plan does have its merits, you have to admit. Taking out the jammer will give us a significant advantage."

"But at what cost?" Hoel retorts, frowning, "We can overwhelm the enemy if we press our attack now, but if we turn to chase the jammer, even assuming we might find it, we'll most assuredly be destroyed and-" Hoel abruptly stops and turns her head to the right, Willy Dee turning in the same direction; they had both felt it and now they see her. Beyond the pillars that encircle the room stands a young woman, tall and wearing a dress coloured deep blue that brigthens as the dress reaches down the woman's legs down to her high-heeled shoes, like the surf of a wave travelling up her form. She taps a blue-gloved hand against one of the nearby pillars as a mock way of announcing her presence, and steps onto the floor with the grace and deliberation of a cat, one foot before the other and with swaying hips. "Now now, young ladies, surely you don't have to shout."

"Mogador," Willy Dee says, surprised, and the elegantly clad woman curtises graciously with a nod of confirmation, " _Vous avez raison._ I hope it's no trouble that I let myself in." She smiles politely, and walks slowly over to the empty coffee table that always seem present in the Mental Space these days. Hoel turns and walks over as well, with Willy Dee trailing behind; "I saw no point in making this meeting _especially_ private," Hoel says neutrally, waving a hand over her bright purple hair; it ties itself into an intricate braid trailing down her neck as she sits down at the table, just as Mogador has just done.

"You two are putting up a good fight, in all fairness," the latter says after a moment's silence, hands in her lap, "But, I have to say, your actions just now confuse me. Anything _but_ standard practice..." Her voice is both guarded and curious at the same time, a sort of calm and collected indulgence, "It's so strange to see people of your reputation, your reputation for tactical brilliance, to do something so unorthodox." She tills her head ever so slightly sidewards, her smile stretching into a smirk, the silent confirmation that you're deliberately trying to step on somebody's toes.

"Yes..." Hoel says at length, tapping a long-nailed index finger against the plain, metallic table; it gives off a clear clanking noise that echoes through the large room, "Sometimes unorthodox thinking requires unorthodox inspiration," she continues, glancing over her shoulder at Willy Dee who's standing behind and to her left.

Mogador reaches out for one of the two cups on the table, suddenly full of a dark steaming liquid, and lifts it gingerly in both hands. "You're really taking advice from the humans, then," she says with an undertone both amused and surprised, "Surely that cannot have been your idea, Hoel?" Her tone is heavy with the suggestion that Hoel really should be above such lines of reasoning, that it must have been Willy Dee's _idiotic_ and _ill-advised_ idea, and someone of Hoel's reputation wouldn't make calls like that. She praises Hoel's genius while at the same time condemns whomever else thought of indulging the humans, and there's only one person left to take the blame for that.

Mogador smiles over the rim of her cup, closing her eyes for a moment as if savouring the smell of the coffee. Hoel blinks at the seemingly-innocent question and blurts out "It was-..." but halts herself, and glances over her shoulder again; Mogador is suddenly watching her intently over the coffee. A moment passes, then suddenly but very calmly Willy Dee puts a hand on Hoel's left shoulder; and she reaches up with her own left hand to entwine her fingers ever so slightly with Willy Dee's, almost without thinking. Once it's done however she finds it strangely pleasant and comforting, and confident that she said the right thing she turns back to Mogador and states calmly but with determination, "Actually, it _was_ my idea."

Mogador's expression sours visibly, although she hastens to hide the fact behind her cup of coffee as she takes a quick sip. Once she puts it down again she's composed herself, and looks quickly between the two before speaking up again, smile gone, "I was hoping to talk some sense into you two, to steer you off this course before it is too late. Surely the humans can do nothing but harm us, harm our functionality and our purpose. Why would we require the help and advice of a species we vanquished in the last war? It makes no sense."

"Really?" Hoel says with a small little smirk, running the nails of her right-hand index and middle fingers through her bright purple hair as she watches Mogador, "It's one of the 'I take no pleasure in destroying you but I will if I you force me' deals? If that was true, why not say so right away, risk so much destruction if we could potentially be talked over?"

A relieved expression spreads over Mogador's features and she leans back in her chair, smiling calmly, "I'm so glad you're seeing reason, Hoel. Let's cease fire right away and come to some sort of agreement." Willy Dee looks down at Hoel with a confused expression, but she just laughs gently and leans forward over the table, propped up on her elbows, "Oh, but you misunderstand, _mon ami_. I was being sarcastic; I don't think you're here to try and reach some sort of truce at all. You're here to whine and squirm and have a hissy fit because we're using tactics you could not possibly have predicted." Mogador's smile dissapears, Willy Dee's frown deepens and Hoel's smirk widens, "To try to salvage some shreds of dignity from being out-smarted and fooled, by calling us cheaters and making empty threats and calling it a draw, trying to explain away your failure! How childish of you. You can't accept that your carefully laid plans are being circumvented by us, let alone being defeated by us. You're not nearly as clever as you think, Mogador."

The french destroyer's face twists with undignified anger, and with a heave she sweeps the cup of coffee and the remainder of the set to the floor with her hand; the dark brown liquid spills and stains the pure white of Mogador's dress, "You have not defeated me yet! How dare _you_ , who fall back on human advice, slander and besmirch me in such a manner?!" She shoves herself away from the table with an infuriated growl and shouts "Volta!"

"You called, sister?" says a second dress-clad woman that materializes just beyond the room, stepping up between the pillars with more of Mogador's confidence but not as much of her grace, her own apparel identical to her sister apart from the red primary colour instead of blue. "You said you were bored?" Mogador almost hisses, struggling to keep her cool, without looking behind herself at the broadly grinning Hoel and the confused-looking Willy Dee, "Now's your chance for some action." Volta nods and turns to follow her sister out without a word, and both of them are gone.

Hoel remains sitting in silence for a moment, staring out to where the two others just went, head tilted down slightly as if thinking; then just as Willy Dee opens her mouth to speak Hoel snaps to her feet and turns to her sister, face back to her military neutral expression, "We appear to be getting additional company. We need to inform the humans at once," she says and then is gone from the Mental Space. Willy Dee frowns, and looks down at her left hand that had been resting on Hoel's shoulder a moment ago, blinks, and then she returns to the Model Space as well.

–

–

Mogador returns to the top of her bridge structure, her dress still stained with coffee and her face flustered with anger; in the distance her enemies have pulled a turn to port and, under the cover of a barrage of missiles, are heading straight for the jammer. "Alright, you two," she mutters, "Let's see how little your humans really count for." The two Fletchers race towards the island, swing around the corner with Hoel in the lead, and Mogador can't help but chuckle to herself as a an inferno of missiles and photon cannon fire slam into Hoel like a wave, tearing her Klein field to tatters and cutting deep gashes in her hull. Then Volta races out right in front of Willy Dee's bow, smothering also her with gunfire; Volta had been hiding and dedicating most of her power and processing capabilities to keeping the jammer running at full capacity. To fight she would have to weaken the power of the jammer and thus reduce its' effective jamming range, but it'd still be enough to keep Willy Dee and Hoel's communications and scanners down. Mogador turns broadside-on and lays down fire against Willy Dee as well, ignoring Hoel who's slowing down in the water, drifting, only her two rear gun turrets firing at Volta. Willy Dee puts on speed and blazes past Volta, taking refuge from Mogador's guns on Volta's other side.

"Clever girl," Mogador mutters and raises her right hand, open-palmed, into the air and missile launch silos open up along her starboard flank. Meanwhile Volta throws herself into a ninety degree turn so as to not block Willy Dee but as she does Willy Dee cuts in front of her and, while emerging from Volta's unwilling cover, a cluster of blue-glowing barrel-like items suddenly fall from Willy Dee's aft and land in the water right in Volta's path; there's no time for her to react and the depth charges-made-mines detonate all around Volta with such violent force and fury that her bow is lifted out of the water, Klein field shining brightly. Volta curses, and once Willy Dee passes her bow and comes along her broadside, guns of every calibre blazing, Volta swings out her centerline-mounted 533mm torpedo tubes and launches a volley at the smaller American destroyer at near-as-damnit point blank range. The torpedoes rake Willy Dee's hull, overwhelming her already-stressed Klein field and punching yet more holes in her.

Mogador smiles triumphantly and, hand held aloft, is just about to snap her fingers and unleash the killing blow in the form of a volley of corrosion missiles when her CCS sparkles to life, the voice on the other end crackling and rasping from having to cut through the jamming, "Hee-ey! Are you two done bullying my comrades _quite_ soon, so that I can lay out the terms of your surrender?"

Mogador frowns, and checks the signal origin. It's Zulu whom she disabled earlier; she must have been able to locate them through Volta's weakened jamming bubble! "You know, the humans invented this neat little thing called a 'laser pointer'. Most useful," Zulu goes on to say, idly. "For what?" Mogador growls, impatient and infuriated, to which Zulu replies "For painting, for example."

"Excuse me?"

"Yeah! Right now we've used one to paint a bull's eye on your back so large it can be seen all the way to Mars! Your jamming may be able to fool my sensors, but not the human eye, and this here laser is pretty damn powerful when linked to me."

"What!?" Mogador spins on her heel, realizing only now that she _can_ register a signal, as well as a minute amount of thermal radiation coming from somewhere... She scans the horizon and the surrounding islands and using her own thermal imaging systems she can see that a little motor boat is laid up against one of the nearby pieces of land, and just besides it stands a group of humans with a large instrument; Zulu is with them too, waving.

"I sent word to the fleet and they now have about five thousand corrosive missiles aimed squarely at you and your sister. In the words of my crew: _Up yours_. Didn't see that one comin', did ya', Francouis?"

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"Utilization of secret jamming technology without notifying the fleet at large, consorting with rebels, open defiance of the decisions of a battleship-class mental model, open and deliberate violence against other vessels of the Fleet of Fog, and finally an _insufferable_ attitude. You're not worthy of a damned court-martial."

Belfast shakes her head and growls in contempt and disgust as she paces back and forth across Nagato's aft deck, below the shade of her sixteen-inch gun barrels of '3' turret. Mogador and Volta are both standing with their backs to the gun turret barbette, their eyes covered by a sort of black-and-red visor, a visual representation of the computer programme installed in their cores to limit their acting capabilites, a little like digital handcuffs. "And what would you rather do, then?" asks Mogador, while Volta remains silent and stoic. Belfast turns and directs a withering look in Mogador's direction, clasping her hands behind her back, "Disarm your ship forms, strip out the gravitational turbochargers in your engines so that even the humans could catch you in a chase, remove your long-range communication capabilities..."

She steps in close to the two prisoners, arms crossed, expression now more bitter than anything else, and her voice is subtly grim but still determined when she continues, "And then I'd disable your Mental models and lock away the software, delete your central mentality-based calculation and action memory files and then I will _force_ the logic and calculation-driven computer system that controls you to tell us what we want to know."

Shocked murmurs rise from the human crowd gathered around, standing three people deep along the railing on top of the gunwale to observe; all the men and women enlisted on this mission, enlisted to live and learn and to practice war games on Fog warships, have partaken in courses where they learn about Mental models, what they are and how they function. They know as much about them as Gunzou Chihaya ever learned and put into his famous book "Model Mentality; on the feelings of the Fog", and they understand full well what 'disable your Mental model' means. The shutdown of one's own self, destroying all emotional and creative thought, removing all traces within the though process that deviates from everyone else and reverting them back to a base computer. This has never truly been accomplished with humans, but to hear about such a punishment against something so human-like was disturbing all the same.

However, merely a moment after Belfast has fallen silent, Kinugasa steps out from the shadow of Nagato's '4' turret and sweeps her eyes over the crowd, speaking in conversational tone only but with authority and passion all the same, "Silence. This is not a debate. We-" she indicates herself and Belfast "-Will render the judgement for these two, such are our rules." She keeps her glare sweeping over the crowd, seeming to somehow stare into every pair of eyes at once until every single voice has died down, but then she turns towards Belfast and says at length, "However..."

Belfast turns to Kinugasa, arms crossed, and picks up where the other, black-dressed heavy cruiser left off, "...We're not quite in agreement on that point, _unfortunately_." Mogador can be heard breathing out, very softly; during Belfast's rant about the punishment she had taken on an almost mortified expression, while Volta still remains stoical, her lips stretched only the tiniest bit into what one might call a smile. "I think they deserve to at least be heard out. This is a unique situation; taking such a drastic and potentially irreversible action may not be the best course at this time," says Kinugasa, hands clasped loosely behind her back as she's speaking, pacing in a wide half-circle around Belfast, her black hair flying before the wind.

"What possible repercussions could there be that we would want to sacrifice such valuable information in order to avoid?" Belfast snaps back at Kinugasa, and with clenched fists she stomps over to Volta again, "Loss of data on one mental model or two? What does it matter?" She then stabs her hand straight into Volta's gut, just below her bosom, her hand simply disappearing inside, and then she pulls it out again; she holds aloft Volta's union core, four little strings of energy like a puppetmaster's strings attached to the core as well as four different places somewhere within Volta. "This is what we are! This! This and the warships we command!" She turns to the humans assemblage, "Do not you simply run a virus purge programme if your computers become compromised? We did not create the mental models in order to have conversations about the ethics of taking a life, we created them to improve our strategic and tactical capabilities, and I'll be damned if I won't act according to that philosophy!"

Belfast then tosses the Union core back into Volta's stomach disdainfully and turns to Kinugasa, saying "I fail to recognize the validity of your objection." Kinugasa meets her eyes square-on but says nothing, her lips a thin line. Somewhere you could swear you could hear a mic being dropped.

"No."

Everyone's heads turn up towards the roof of '4' turret, where Nagato herself has appeared, face stoic, "We are preserving their mental models for now. Your arguments are more than valid, Belfast, but we may still need their mental models for later with their data intact; they may still offer us the information willingly, given time, and they will be more valuable as bargaining chips in their current form."

"Nagato, what are you doing?" Belfast asks in a tone that somehow manages to sound both respectful and demanding at the same time, while Kinugasa looks up with surprise. "Exercising my powers to intervene in a court-martial under extraordinary conditions," Nagato replies, "We've never held a court-martial for wilful traitors before, and so I have been... Watching."

Belfast's expression sours, she looks like someone whose authority is being walked over and their opinions ignored in front of everyone whose respect she desires, but she composes herself and asks instead, "What will we do, then?"

"Back-up their mental data, give it to me to store, and then shut them down; we will reactivate them when we reach Yokosuka. That is all," the battleship simply says, and then disappears, leaving both Belfast and Kinugasa visibly flustered, but for entirely separate reasons.

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"Ass."

Warspite puts down her cup of steaming hot tea as Nagato enters the Mental Space, who stops just at the periphery and looks as if Warspite had physically punched her. The latter rolls her eyes and leans back in her chair, "Don't act all surprised and innocent, Nagato. You should have let me talk to my own subordinate; Belfast is a damn good soldier, she deserves better than to just be walked all over by someone waving a warrant around in front of everybody."

"Well, I wasn't just going to let them lobotomise Volta and Mogador, was I?" Nagato looks over to Warspite with a bewildered expression, slowly walking up into the room and approaching te table, "How would we be worthy of the human's respect if we met out such a punishment?"

"Not my point," the blonde battleship replies cooly, "You could very well have spoken to me and let me handle it before things got out of control, or have you forgotten how to use the CCS altogether?" Nagato's cheeks redden at this remark, and Warspite's expression softens, "Please, we're friends aren't we? You can't shoulder all this responsibility on your own."

Nagato exhales sharply through her nose and straightens her back at that, "It _is_ my responsibility. I set all this in motion and I will not see it be shot out from underneath me and prove Soyuz's point for her. I drafted you all here because I trust you to follow me through this, and even though I understand that this new existence will be slow to digest for some of us I still need to set a precedent, more than anyone else. I apologize for how I treated Belfast, but it had to be done." And with that Nagato vanishes from the Mental Space just as Warspite opens her mouth to protest.

And with Volta and Mogador in tow the fleet sailed on, and as dusk set in that day they could see Yokosuka harbor profiled against the setting sun.

 **End of chapter 4.**


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